


I love you (but I hate your friends)

by orphan_account



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 16:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21182279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “You know, Lio?” Aina says, leaning against the truck “Sometimes I thinkweare the stupid ones.”





	I love you (but I hate your friends)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _I love you (But I hate your friends)_ @ Neon Trees

“So, you like him?” Lio asks, as Aina helps him haul a big chunk of glass on the truck.  
Her face is already red from exhaustion – they’ve been picking up debris non-stop since the sun rose – but Lio is sure he can see a blush growing on her cheeks. “He’s an idiot.” She says, like it’s an answer, with a tone that tries to sound exasperated but ends up betraying her fondness.  
“The world’s number one firefighting idiot.” Lio corrects her, and they both laugh until they're breathless.

*

“My ears are ringing” Galo declares, as he lifts Lucia up his shoulders to allow her to try and fix the emergency electric system, in a desperate attempt to get at least some parts of Promeopolis back and running.  
She sighs, as she puts a foot on his head to try and unscrew a particularly asshole-ish screw that’s just out of her reach. “Probably someone is thinking about how stupid you are.” She replies, a bit harsh, because she has yet to forgive him for the destruction of her best armor to date.  
“You must be right.”  
“I am _always_ right.”  
Galo manages to stay quiet for seventeen whole seconds, before he opens his mouth again. “Do you think it’s Lio?”  
Lucia has to take her goggles off. Stupid sun and its stupid light reflecting against the metal. She can’t see the head of the screw. “What?”  
“The one thinking about me being an idiot, do you think it’s Lio?”  
_God. _Lucia wishes Varys was there instead. Varys wouldn’t let her suffer like this. “Are your ears still ringing right now?”  
He cocks his head – Lucia feels it rather than see, the way his hair brushes against her legs – and then, after a moment he answers: “Yes. Why?”  
“Don’t get your hopes up, then, pretty boy. It’s just me. “

*

“Once, we almost kissed, you know?” Aina confesses. She’s driving the truck towards the dumpster, eyes fixed on the road.  
Lio props his feet up the dashboard. “What happened then?”  
Her grip on the steering wheel tightens. “You happened. We were at the frozen lake, skating, and he was holding me and then you fell through the sky and he just – let me go.”  
“Oh.” Lio says, because he can’t think of anything else to say. “I’m, I’m sorry.”  
She’s smiling, but there are tears poking behind her eyes. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”  
“Guess not. Wait, did he let you fall on the ice?”  
Aina’s smile grows. “Nope, he gently helped me up before I could fall.”  
“That’s Galo for you. He may be an idiot, but he wouldn’t let any of his friends get hurt for anything in the world.”  
They spend the rest of the drive in companionable silence.

*

“I’m not _that_ stupid.” Galo argues, just because he hasn’t got anything better to do. It’s well past lunchtime and his shoulders hurt, and he can’t move, because Lucia is still propped up on him.  
“You got emotionally manipulated by a sociopath asshole for like, three quarters of your life.” She replies, underlining her point by digging her heels where Galo’s neck and shoulders meet.  
“Aina’ sister was too, and she’s like, a genius.”  
Lucia ponders it for a bit. “Fair enough, one braincell man, fair enough.”

*

Lio ends up unloading the whole truck on his own – Aina claimed she had to make a call to her sister. He doesn’t complain about it when she comes back, though, figures it’s a sort of payback for the missed kiss at the frozen lake. A little petty, sure, but he understands. He would have done the same.  
“You know, Lio?” she says, leaning against the truck “Sometimes I think _we_ are the stupid ones.”  
“We as in? The Burning Rescue Team? The whole world?” he replies, leaning next to her. “Me and you?”  
She turns towards him. “I was on the comm with you two the whole time, you know, right?”  
They haven’t known each other that long, but from the whole day they’ve got to spend together, Lio knows that Aina doesn’t take shit from anyone.  
“I wouldn’t have made him a dog with my flames.” he ends up replying, voice thin. “Not even if he’d asked with his best puppy eyes.”  
Aina laughs before elbowing him in his side. “Liar.”

*

“I’m tiiired” Galo says, stretching his arms carefully, as to not drop Lucia.  
“Me too.”  
“Do you want to get pizza after we are done? I’ll call the others, tell them to meet us at –“  
Lucia kicks him gently in the head. “Galo. We stopped the apocalypse yesterday. I doubt there’s a restaurant open in Promeopolis.”  
His shoulders slump and she almost falls down. “There’s an oven. In my lab. The emergency generator group should be good enough to get it up running. And I think Remi still has some leftover pizza in his fridge. If it hasn’t gone bad by now, that’s it.”  
“I’ll send a text to Remi, then, tell him to call everyone and bring whatever leftover he has.”  
It’s late and Lucia is tired – her arms hurt and so do her legs and she can’t feel the tips of her fingers anymore. She should go to bed once she’s done: tuck herself in and prepare herself for another morning of endless repairs. Instead, she finds herself looking forward to have dinner with the rest of the Team, even if it will inevitably translate in the destruction of her poor, poor, lab.  
Galo’ stupidity must be contagious, she thinks as she smiles.

*

“So, now that you are not bound with the Promare anymore…what are you going to do?” Lucia asks, sloshing her pint of beer around. Her lab has been transformed into a room capable of letting human guests in it, even though it involved too much moving around for her tastes.  
Gueira looks at Meis and Meis looks at Lio, who, in turn, looks back at Gueira.  
“I take it you haven’t thought about it at all, uh.”  
“We could start up a gang, maybe” Meis offers, as Gueira nods. “We are good at it.”  
“Yeah.” Lio agrees. “A gang of pyromaniacs, maybe? Wouldn’t want you guys to go unemployed.”  
Aina mocks a bow at him. “So kind of you, really. I’m moved.” Galo smiles, bright teeth showing. “If you want to see me that bad you just need to ask, no need to do crimes.”  
Lio flips him off. “But then, I wouldn’t have an excuse to see you naked.” It’s not the first time he’s flirted openly with Galo, but it’s the first time he’s done it with other people around. He notices Lucia exchanging glances with Gueira and Meis, while Aina chokes on her beer.  
He notices Galo, too, and how his mouth hangs open and his cheeks go red.  
“You could come and work with us, then. He’s naked half the time.” Remi deadpans.  
“It’s because my burning soul makes me hot you guys don’t- “  
Lucia stops him, one of her tiny hands coming to rest over Galo’s chest. “It’s ok fireboy, we know you are an exhibitionist. We don’t mind. You’ve got nice tits, after all.”  
“But in all seriousness” Aina starts, before stopping to cough again “you could all join us. I mean it. The Rescue Team is always in need of new recruits.”  
“Aren’t you guys going to be unemployed after the city’s fixed, though?” Meis asks, a little skeptic. “Without us burning things around, things are going to get quiet after a while.”  
Gueira, who’s piling up all his empty beer cans, glares at him. “But think how cool it could be. We could be, like, the Mad Unemployed Gang.” Lio sighs. Gueira always had a penchant for bad names.  
“We are not mad, though.” Varys object, like _that_’s the problem he has with the name. Suddenly, Lio understands _why_ they are friends with Galo.  
Meis points his thumb at Lucia. “Dude. Dude, she kinda is.”  
“Yeah” she says, standing up on the table, glass still glued to her hand “I kinda am, Varys.”  
“So? Mad Unemployed Gang?” Gueira asks, joining her and slinging an arm around her shoulders “For the Mad Unemployed Gang, hip-hip hurrah!” he says, ten decibels louder than strictly necessary.  
It’s a stupid name and it’s a stupid party, with too much alcohol and not enough pizza, yet Lio finds himself raising his glass too.  
“Oh boy” Galo whispers in his ear, moving closer to him and knocking off some kind of tech off a shelf – thank God Lucia is too drunk to notice - “Ignis is gonna be so pissed we changed the name of the team. I’m happy, though.”  
Lio scoots closer, until he’s almost completely pressed against Galo. “Me too.”  
  
*

None of them have a home to come back to, so they crawl back to the Rescue headquarters – by feet, because no one is sober enough to drive tonight, and definitely not sober enough to swerve the debris that still clutters the streets.  
They climb back into the makeshift beds they've made last night. Aina drapes herself over Galo, as Lucia falls asleep on Varys' shoulder. Remi claims the leotard blanket and the spare glittery pillow that they stole from Ignis' office. Gueria, Meis and Lio share one mattress, because old habits die hard.

*

“Are you jealous?” Gueira asks, as soon as everyone else has started snoring, rolling over and almost killing Meis in the process.  
Lio’s voice is thick with sleep and annoyance. “What?”  
“That we’ll get to see him naked too.” Meis clarifies. “We could cover our eyes, if you’d like.”  
Lio kicks his shin. “I think half of Promeopolis has seen him naked at this point.” He snarls, turning his back to both of them and stealing the heavy blanket in the process.  
“So you _are_ jealous, then.” Meis doesn’t bother trying to reclaim back the blanket. Instead, he maneuvers Gueira, so he’s draped over him. “Even without the Promare you are still a human furnace, uh.” he mutters into Gueira’s shoulder, before he dozes off.

*

“I’m going to tell him!” Aina declares, as she closes off the office for the day. Things have been going slow lately, with the repairs done and with the lack of Burnish to spice things up. They haven’t gotten a single call for help in days.  
Lio stares at her for a moment, pondering his words, before settling for “Condolences.”  
Her smile falters a bit.  
“Do you think it’ll go that bad, uh?”  
Lio sighs, sitting down on the bench, careful to place his jacket under his ass. The metal still feels too cold against him, no matter how many layers of clothing he’s wearing. “I think he’ll say something along the lines of _I like you too! You are one of the best firefighters in the city, Aina, who wouldn’t like you?_”  
She closes her locker with too much force. “So that’s why you haven’t told him yet.”  
“Maybe.”  
“I’m not saying you are wrong, because you aren’t but…I’m going to try anyway. So, don’t you try and stop me, Lio Fotia.”  
He chuckles, letting his hair fall in his face as he turns towards her. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Good luck.”

*

“And he said _Aina, you know I like you too, right? You are the most amazing person I know. I admire you more than I ever admired the Governor when I thought he was good.”_  
Lio cleans his hand with the napkin before patting Aina on the shoulder. “And then? What did you say?” he asks, in between bites of pizza Inferno Volcano Margherita. Galo was right. It is _good_, despite the stupid name.  
“I told him I _liked liked_ him and then he said _oh_ and then _sorry_ and then he told me he was confused because he thought you and I were dating.”  
Lio groans. “The only though he had this month, and it’s such a moronic one.” He gestures the waiter for another round of pizza. “But to his defense, we have been spending a lot of time together, lately. Most importantly, though, what did _you_ say?”  
Aina goes red. “I…how do I put it? I might have told him we’ve been hanging out because we bonded over our mutual crush on him.” She isn’t looking Lio in the eye. Her bouncing leg under the table makes their glasses shake so much some water spills on the tablecloth. “Are you mad at me?”  
“No, I’m just…” he pauses, as the waiter puts another plate of pizza in front of him. “Annoyed.” He stabs the pizza with more force than strictly necessary, cutting through the mozzarella with rapid stabs of his knife. “See, Aina, I have a theory. The more time one spends with Galo, the more one’s braincells tend to commit suicide. I’m not mad, but if you don’t tell me what he said after, I’m going to be.”  
She laughs, then, tension melting away from her shoulders. “Oh, nothing important. He just said _but he knows I am an idiot. How was I supposed to know if he never told me?_”

Lio chokes on his pizza.

*

“I can get home on my own, you know?” Aina says, as she rests her head against Lio's back. “But thank you for the lift.”  
Lio’s still not used to drive a real bike – he never bothered to stop at red lights back then and it’s hard, now, to remember that he has to actually brake, that just thinking about doing it isn’t enough.  
“It’s the least I could do.” He replies, once he’s stopped in front of her apartment. It’s a shiny new building, like most of the buildings in New Promeopolis. He should get one too, move out of the headquarters. It's lonely, now, with Meis and Gueira living on their own.  
“I’m sorry Aina.”  
She smiles, but there are tears rolling down her cheeks. Lio doesn’t try to stop them, but he offers her a handkerchief.  
“That theory you told me earlier, I think you should demonstrate it yourself. You know. For science.” She says, after her shoulders have stopped shaking. “Lucia would be happy.”  
“I’m not too keen on being used for greater scientific scopes, but I think it can be arranged this time, you know?”  
Aina hugs him tight before disappearing into the building entrance.  
"Wait!" he screams after her before putting his helmet on "Are you suggesting I try and become an idiot?"

*

“You are stupid.” Lio says, first thing in the morning, as he walks into headquarters.  
“The world’s number one firefighting idiot, baby.” Galo corrects him.  
“I love you.” Lio says, and then adds: “Idiot.”  
Galo smiles, big and bright, as he lifts Lio up to kiss him. "You too."  
Neither of them notice Remi and Lucia exchanging money and grins from behind their desks.

*

"Lio" Galo says, voice too loud for seven in the morning "I think we should stop being Lio de Galon."  
"What?" Lio does not bother to open his eyes, but he rolls towards Galo. "Why?"  
"We should be Idiot de Idioton."  
Lio sighs. And there he though he was being woken up for something important. "You." He says, pushing his cold feet over Galo's legs "You spend too much time with Gueira."  
Galo retaliates by getting his fingers into Lio's hair, wrapping stray locks around his pinkie. "It's a nice name, though, don't you agree?"  
Lio sighs, giving up any attempt at getting back to sleep and finally opening his eyes to stare at Galo with a smile on his face. "It is." He says, and means it.


End file.
